Mike Watt
Michael David Watt (born December 20, 1957 in Porstmouth, Virginia) is an American bass guitarist, singer and songwriter. He is best-known for co-founding the rock bands The Minutemen, dos, and fIREHOSE; He is also the bassist for the reunited Stooges and a member of the art rock/jazz/punk/improv group Banyan as well as many other post-Minutemen projects. Though Watt has not had much mainstream success or visibility, he is often cited as a key figure in the development of American alternative rock: the Red Hot Chili Peppers dedicated their hugely successful Blood Sugar Sex Magik (1991) to him. The seminal rock writer Richard Meltzer has called Watt "the most important songwriter since Bob Dylan"'Mike Watt on a pedestal (or something)' by Richard Meltzer, published in Spiels of a Minuteman, Montréal 2003 p.124. On November 1 2008, Watt received the Bass Player Magazine lifetime achievement award, presented by Flea. Biography Early career When he was young, Watt's family moved to San Pedro, California, where he became good friends with D. Boon. Watt and Boon picked up bass and guitar, respectively. Watt was a fan of T Rex and Blue Öyster Cult, while Boon's exposure to rock music was limited to Creedence Clearwater Revival, another Watt favorite. Watt and Boon were initially rather ignorant of music; they didn't know bass guitars were different from guitars, and Watt simply removed two strings from a guitar to emulate a bass. When he acquired a bass guitar, he lamented that the instrument was rarely prominent in rock music, but has cited John Entwistle, Jack Bruce, James Jamerson, Geezer Butler, Richard Hell, Larry Graham, Bootsy Collins, Joe Bouchard, Dennis Dunaway, and Gene Simmons as influences.Mike Watt Interview Clark, Alistair. "Mike Watt Interview", Crasier Frane. Retrieved December 16, 2009 When he first saw a real bass at 15, he commented that it looked liked a guitar with bridge cables.Gettingit.com: The Politics Of Punk Years later, Watt would say that the lack of role models left him free to develop his own approach to playing bass guitar. The Minutemen By the mid-1970s, Watt and Boon formed a band called [[The Reactionaries] with drummer George Hurley and vocalist Martin Tamburovich. The band later became The Minutemen with another drummer named Frank Tonche, who only lasted two shows with the group; Hurley, who had been in the short-lived New Wave group Hey Taxi! at the time the Minutemen first formed, rejoined Watt and Boon. After signing with SST Records in 1980, The Minutemen began touring constantly, releasing a number of albums along the way. Their music was based on the speed, brevity and intensity of punk, but included elements of jazz, folk, and funk. In 1984, Watt met Black Flag bassist Kira Roessler during a Black Flag/Minutemen tour. They soon became romantically involved, and subsequently began collaborating on songs, including material on the Minutemen's final album 3-Way Tie (For Last). They also formed a two-bass duo, Dos, and have since recorded and released three records. The Minutemen ended tragically on December 22, 1985, when Boon was killed in an automobile accident while driving to Arizona with a girlfriend. Their fifth full-length album, 3-Way Tie (For Last) had already been scheduled for release at the time of the accident. In the documentary film We Jam Econo, Watt mentioned that the last time he saw Boon, he had received lyrics for 10 songs from critic and songwriter Richard Meltzer for a planned collaboration with the Minutemen. The Minutemen were also planning to record a triple album with the working title 3 Dudes, 6 Sides, 3 Studio, 3 Live as way to counteract bootleggers. earpollution profiles - mike watt [page 2 - issue 2.Ø8, august 2ØØØ] fIREHOSE After Boon's death, Watt was profoundly depressed; he and Hurley initially intended to quit music altogether. Sonic Youth invited Watt to hang out with them in New York in 1986; they recorded a cover of Madonna's "Burnin' Up" (with additional guitars by Greg Ginn) on the first Ciccone Youth EP, and Watt played bass for two songs on the Sonic Youth album Evol. Watt cites this period as critical in inspiring his post-Minutemen career saying, "The first thing I did was Thurston asked me to play bass on Evol. That was a big highlight, man. Like, 'What, you want me to play without D. Boon?'" Mike Watt Interview Clark, Alistair. "Mike Watt Interview", Crasier Frane. Retrieved December 16, 2009 Subsequently, Ed Crawford, a Minutemen fan who drove to San Pedro from Ohio, persuaded the Watt/Hurley rhythm section to continue playing music. fIREHOSE was formed soon after. After three releases on SST, fIREHOSE was signed to Columbia Records by A&R man Jim Dunbar. Shortly after the release of 1993's [[mr. machinery operator, the band decided to call it quits. Watt and Kira married in 1987, but their marriage fell apart not long after fIREHOSE's break-up. However, both their friendship and Dos have remained intact; they even recorded their third album, Justamente Tres, not long after their divorce. Solo career After working with fIREHOSE, Watt began a solo career. His first album, Ball-Hog or Tugboat?, featured appearances from dozens of musicians (many were Watt's peers from the 1980s SST era), including Henry Rollins, Eddie Vedder, J Mascis, members of Sonic Youth, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Frank Black, Nirvana, Soul Asylum, Jane's Addiction, the Beastie Boys, Evan Dando, and the Screaming Trees. The album and its supporting tour were Watt's first taste of mainstream fame, when Eddie Vedder and Dave Grohl of Nirvana were part of his touring group. After Vedder returned to his Pearl Jam commitments and Grohl began working with his new band Foo Fighters, Watt formed his only four-piece touring group to date, The Crew Of The Flying Saucer, featuring guitarist Nels Cline and two drummers. In 1996, Watt contributed bass lines to two songs on Porno for Pyros' second album, Good God's Urge. He subsequently ended up being the bassist for the tour that followed the release of the album, sparking a friendship with lead singer Perry Farrell in the process. (The band's drummer, Stephen Perkins, had already worked with and befriended Watt during the Ball-Hog Or Tugboat? sessions.) In November of that year, he created and established his own official homepage, Mike Watt's Hoot Page, initially using his personal Internet Service Provider's free web space until bandwidth demands spurred him to move the site to its own domain name and server. In 1997, Watt released Contemplating the Engine Room, a punk rock song cycle using naval life as an extended metaphor for both Watt's family history (the album has a picture of his father in his Navy uniform on the cover) and the Minutemen. The album, which was critically well received, features a trio of musicians including Nels Cline on guitar, and Watt as the only singer. Watt went on to play in such groups as Banyan (with Stephen Perkins and Nels Cline) and Hellride, a sometime live outfit that plays cover versions of Stooges songs. He also played in The Wylde Ratttz with Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and The Stooges' Ron Asheton, recording a song for the film Velvet Goldmine. Watt also recorded a bass line to send to the Pennsylvania space-folk band The Clubber Lang Gang for their record Now Here This on the track 'For the Broken People'. Illness, recovery and The Stooges In January 2000, Watt fell ill with an infection of his perineum, forcing him into emergency surgery and nine weeks of bedrest in his San Pedro apartment. Initially unable to play his bass, he rebuilt his strength with intense woodshedding and practice as well as live club gigs where he performed sets of Stooges covers with Hellride in California and with J Mascis and Dinosaur Jr. drummer Murph in New York under the name Hellride East. In 2000, Mascis asked Watt to participate in a world tour behind Mascis' first post-Dinosaur Jr. release, J Mascis and the Fog's More Light. At several of the shows, Asheton joined Mascis and Watt onstage, wherein the group would play entire sets of Stooges songs. Watt and Mascis later joined Asheton and his brother, Stooges drummer Scott Asheton, for a one-time-only performance at a Belgian festival under the name Asheton, Asheton, Mascis & Watt. In 2001, Watt was one of several bassists invited to participate in the sessions for Gov't Mule's The Deep End, partly on the recommendation of Primus' Les Claypool. Watt and Gov't Mule recorded a cover version of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Effigy" for the album. The sessions were immortalized in the documentary feature film Rising Low. In 2002, Watt, along with Pete Yorn and members of The Hives, backed Iggy Pop for a short set of Stooges songs at that year's Shortlist Music Prize ceremony. The performance, along with Watt's past performance history with the Asheton brothers and a successful recording session for Pop's Skull Ring album, led to Watt's being enlisted to fill the bass slot in the reunited Stooges lineup in 2003. The reunited Stooges played their first show in almost 20 years at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in May 2003. In 2002, Watt was invited by pop punk band Good Charlotte to make a cameo appearance in their music video for "Lifestyles Of The Rich And Famous". He has a small speaking part as a jury foreman. In 2003, Watt's first book, Spiels Of A Minuteman, was released by the Quebec, Canada book publisher L'Oie De Cravan. The book, printed in both English and French, contains all of Watt's song lyrics from the Minutemen era as well as the tour journal he wrote during the Minutemen's only European tour with Black Flag, essays by former SST co-owner Joe Carducci, Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore, and Blue Öyster Cult lyricist and longtime Watt hero Richard Meltzer, and illustrations by Raymond Pettibon that had been used in all of the Minutemen's album artwork. Also in 2003, Watt made his second music video appearance in as many years, appearing in the video for Cobra Verde's song "Riot Industry" (along with Rudy Ray Moore and George Wendt). Watt himself would describe his part in the video as such: ''The Secondman's Middle Stand'' Watt's third solo album The Secondman's Middle Stand, inspired by both his 2000 illness and one of his favorite books, Dante's The Divine Comedy, was released in 2004; one reviewer writes that the album is a "harrowing, funny, and genuinely moving stuff from a true American original." allmusic ((( The Secondman's Middle Stand > Review ))). For the first time since the Minutemen, Watt recorded the album with an "all-Pedro band", Mike Watt & The Secondmen, consisting of organist Pete Mazich and drummer Jerry Trebotic, along with former that dog. vocalist Petra Haden. While promoting and touring behind The Secondman's Middle Stand, Watt announced plans for future recordings, stating that he intended to record as frequently as he did in the Minutemen days for as long as he could.Econo 101 Watt would part amicably with Columbia/Sony BMG in 2005, after 14 years as both a solo artist and as one-third of fIREHOSE. The Unknown Instructors In 2005, another side project featuring Watt came to light with the announced September 20 release of The Way Things Work, an album of improvised music under the group name, the Unknown Instructors with George Hurley, Saccharine Trust's Joe Baiza and Jack Brewer, and poet/saxophonist Dan McGuire. A month after the album's release, the Unknown Instructors recorded a second album, The Master's Voice, with Pere Ubu frontman David Thomas and artist Raymond Pettibon joining the core quartet of Watt, Hurley, McGuire and Baiza. Watt would further his interest in improvised music by forming a trio, Los Pumpkinheads, with former Beastie Boys keyboardist Money Mark. On December 14, 2005, the McNally-Smith College of Music in Saint Paul, Minnesota announced the formation of the Mike Watt Bass Guitar Scholarship, which is to be awarded annually to a bass major starting in the Fall of 2006.Bass Guitar Scholarship Programs at McNally Smith College of Music | Mike Watt Scholarship In March 2006, Watt took part in the performance at Disney Hall, Los Angeles, of Glenn Branca's "Hallucination City" Symphony #13. ''The Weirdness'' In October 2006, Watt joined the rest of The Stooges at producer Steve Albini's Electrical Audio Studio in Chicago, Illinois to record The Weirdness, the first Stooges studio album since 1973's Raw Power. The album was released on March 6, 2007, and much of Watt's 2007 was devoted to Stooges duties, including the band's first full-length U.S. tour since the band's reformation.iggy + the stooges on tour in the u.s. - april 2007 Also in October 2006, Watt contributed a 'spiel' for Irish band Estel's latest album The bones of something.... In November 2006, Watt revealed to Pitchfork Media that he contributed his bass skills to six tracks on My December, the third album by American Idol singer Kelly Clarkson, a studio assignment that he took at the invitation of his "old friend", producer/engineer David Kahne.Mike Watt Guests on Kelly Clarkson Record | Pitchfork Watt also worked on two other projects during this time period: Funanori, a musical collaboration with Kaori Tsuchida, guitarist of The Go! Team, on shamisen MySpace and other instruments, and Pelicanman (named after the closing track on The Secondman's Middle Stand) with Petra Haden.Pitchfork: Mike Watt Collab Fever: Petra Haden, Go! Team's Kaori The first three songs recorded by Watt and Tsuchida as Funanori were released on a split EP with Tokyo band LITE in the summer of 2007 by Transduction Records. Watt also contributed a cover of Blue Öyster Cult's "Burning For You", recorded with Haden, Nels Cline, Money Mark Nishita, and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith, to the all-star compilation album Guilt by Association Vol. 1, released in August by the independent label Engine Room Recordings. On June 9, 2007, Watt was the live narrator for the silent movie Brand on the Brain at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood, California. Post-Columbia solo work Basic tracks have also been recorded in New York in May 2009 during a planned break in Watt's Spring 2009 tour, for Watt's first recorded work with The Missingmen. The album, Hypnenated-Man, will consist of thirty short songs inspired by the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch. The Watt from Pedro Show When he is not on tour, Watt hosts a regular internet radio show, The Watt from Pedro Show, a continuation of a program Watt had first done on a low-power FM station in the late 1990s. The program became so popular with Watt's fans that the website's host temporarily forced the show offline on weekdays until a sponsor or other solution could be found. On January 10, 2006, The Watt from Pedro Show became available as a podcast. Watt's Post-fIREHOSE Bands In all of these groups, Watt is the band leader and handles vocals and bass. *1995: unnamed band with Eddie Vedder - guitar, vocals; Dave Grohl - guitar, drums, vocals; William Goldsmith - drums, Pat Smear - guitar (these shows were billed just as Mike Watt shows) *1995: The Crew of the Flying Saucer: Nels Cline - guitar, vocals; Vince Meghrouni - drums, sax, vocals; Michael Preussner - drums *1997-1999: The Black Gang: Nels Cline or Joe Baiza - guitar, vocals; Stephen Hodges or Bob Lee - drums; Steve Reed - sound mixing and backing vocals *1999-2000: The Pair of Pliers: Tom Watson - guitar, drums, vocals; Vince Meghrouni - drums, harmonica, flute, sax, vocals *2000-2001: The Jom and Terry Show: Tom Watson - guitar, percussion, vocals; Jerry Trebotic - drums *2001-present: George Hurley and Mike Watt: George Hurley - drums, vocals. *2002-present: The Real Oh My: Nels Cline - guitar, Kevin Fitzgerald - drums *2002-present: The Secondmen: Pete Mazich - Hammond B3 organ, vocals; Jerry Trebotic - drums (2002-2004); Raul Morales - drums (2004-present); Petra Haden - vocals (studio only, 2004); Paul Roessler - organ, vocals (when Mazich is unavailable to tour) *2005-present: The Missingmen: Tom Watson - guitar, vocals; Raul Morales - drums. Watt's most frequent collaborators These individuals have collaborated with Watt the most, both live and in the studio. *Nels Cline *Petra Haden *J Mascis *Pete Mazich *Thurston Moore *Stephen Perkins *Lee Ranaldo *Kira Roessler *Paul Roessler *Jerry Trebotic Equipment Basses Watt has vaulted primarily between Gibson and Fender basses for most of his career. He does not do compensated endorsements for any particular guitar brand as of November 2005, usually preferring to buy used basses that he discovers in instrument stores, pawn shops, via classified ads, or through eBay. Watt frequently modifies his basses by adding active electronics, and for luck and inspiration he likes to put pictures of favorite people and/or things on his basses. He initially started with a mid-60's Gibson EB-3 bass; he switched to a Fender Precision Bass in 1982, feeling that the Gibson was causing him to play too many notes at the time; his first Fender P-Bass was purchased from former Fear bassist Derf Scratch; the bass, which Scratch used on Fear's classic debut album The Record, would also end up being heard on the second Minutemen album, What Makes a Man Start Fires?. Around 1984 he found a Fender Telecaster Bass, which became his main bass for the last two years of the Minutemen's existence as well as much of fIREHOSE's; the bass had pictures of Kira and of Watt's favorite singer, Madonna, on the instrument. Close to the end of fIREHOSE's collective life he started using a late 60's Gibson Thunderbird bass; this ended up being his main bass after the white Telecaster was stolen from his apartment sometime in 1995. Watt semi-retired the Thunderbird (he did use it again for his first ever gig with the Stooges at the 2003 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and in his sessions with Kelly Clarkson and The Black Gang), and switched back to his 1965 Gibson EB-3 bass, citing the short scale as being easier on his hands after not touching a bass for the entire time he recovered from surgery; he decorated the bass with photographs of his deceased best friend and Minutemen bandmate D. Boon, jazz legend and longtime hero John Coltrane, a picture of a friend's compass tattoo, and a sticker from one of Watt's favorite current bands, Sistas in the Pit. This has been his primary bass for live performances but he has also used the bass to record his contributions with Gov't Mule and on J Mascis' December 2000 John Peel radio session, as well as all of his recordings as a member of the Stooges to date. Watt feared that he would have to temporarily shelve the bass in July 2005 when a crack was discovered in its headstock during a 2005 Stooges European tour; He was able to have the instrument repaired in time for the next leg of the tour. The instrument, along with the rest of the Stooges' equipment and the band's truck, were stolen outside their Montreal, Canada hotel on August 4, 2008.[http://www.hootpage.com/stoogesstolenstuff/stoogesstolenstuff.html Watt, Mike. "Stooges Stuff Stolen On August 4, 2008", Mike Watt's Hoot Page. Retrieved August 5, 2008]. Two days later, a fan drove up to the Stooges' next scheduled concert in Toronto and surprised Watt with a replacement bass, a 1969 Gibson EB-3 that Watt would dub the "Andy Bass" after the name of the fan who presented it to him[http://www.hootpage.com/hoot_news.html Watt, Mike, "A Hoot and A Holler", Mike Watt's Hoot Page. Written August 31, 2008. Retrieved May 9, 2009]. A second fan named Dan also gave Watt a 1965 Gibson EB-0 after a show in San Diego, CA later in 2008; This bass, dubbed the Dan Bass (for obvious reasons), would later be christened with a picture of Stooges guitarist Ron Asheton after his passing in January of 2009, and is the bass Watt is playing on his "Prac'n the Third Opera" Spring 2009 tour[http://www.hootpage.com/hoot_pracnthe3rdoperadiary1.html Watt, Mike, "Prac'n the Third Opera Tour 2009" Tour Diary, Week One". Written April 17-22, 2009. Retrieved May 9, 2009]. In late 2004 he acquired a second EB-3 bass as an alternate instrument for live gigs. He initiated the bass during Dos' annual Christmas benefit show, and first used it extensively during a brief six-date spin on the 2005 Vans Warped Tour. Over the past few years, he has also started to acquire some custom-made instruments, including basses made by guitar craftsmen Tim Thelen, Mark Garza and Darrin Huff. On ''The Secondman's Middle Stand Watt initially recorded the basic tracks with a Telecaster-style bass built by Tim Thelen, but later recut the basslines with a Moon Larry Graham model bass, which he also used on a 1998 European tour. A yellow Telecaster-style shortscale bass built by Garza and nicknamed "The Bananaplower" can be seen in the "Tied A Reed 'Round My Waist" video and heard on Banyan's Live At Perkins' Palace CD. Two of his many basses feature autographs: a budget-line Alembic bass he acquired during the early fIREHOSE days and later had spray-painted green features the autograph of Los Angeles Lakers star basketball player James Worthy, and a mid-70's hollow body Gibson Les Paul Signature Bass features, appropriately, Les Paul's signature with the salutation, "Keep on pickin'". As of 2016-2017, Watt has been seen primarily playing two prototypes of a signature Wattplower bass built to his specs by Reverend Guitars. Amplification Not much is known about what amplification Watt preferred in the Minutemen days. Pictures (including those in Double Nickels On The Dime's gatefold sleeve) have him using Ampeg SVT amps. In 1985 Watt switched to a Gallien-Krueger amplifier driving Cerwin-Vega speaker cabinets; a photo of this rig can be seen on the back cover of fIREHOSE's Ragin' Full-On. During his time with J Mascis and The Fog, Watt played through Marshall amps at the direction of Mascis. For his solo works in the earlier 2000s, with Banyan, and on some Stooges tours, Watt used Eden amplification, for which he was an endorsing artist, including a WP100 preamp and two D410XLT cabinets. When he performed with the Stooges in the past, he usually played through gear rented by the promoter according to the band's contract rider - usually two Ampeg SVT amplifiers and cabinets, although for one round of dates in 2006 Watt used Marshalls borrowed from ex-Stone Roses/Primal Scream bassist Gary 'Mani' Mounfield. During the 2004 recording of The Secondman's Middle Stand he temporarily switched to an Aguilar preamp as the Eden preamp was in need of repair. Sometime in the early to mid 2010s, Watt switched to using two DNA cabinets. He is an endorser for DNA. He also switched to a including a TC Electronic Blacksmith head. Accessories Watt uses and endorses D'Addario strings. He previously endorsed them during his early solo career, and mentioned being a Rotosound user in a fIREHOSE newsletter around the time of Flyin' The Flannel. During his stint with J Mascis and The Fog he used Dean Markley strings on occasion since Mascis was an endorser of that brand and thus could obtain bass strings for Watt free of charge. Watt rarely uses effect pedals in the studio (two notable instances pre-2004 were a Digitech Whammy pedal on Dos' "'Till The Blood Ran" (Justamente Tres) and an envelope filter on "Tell 'Em Boy" (Ball-Hog or Tugboat?), and until 2004 never used them in live performance. On The Secondman's Middle Stand he used the Whammy Pedal and a variety of distortion units and other stompbox effects to help illustrate the album's storyline. For the tours in 2004 and 2005 behind The Secondman's Middle Stand Watt used a Boss pedal board with four different effects and a Korg stompbox tuner. Computers Watt has been a longtime Apple Computer user, Apple evangelist, and outspoken critic of Microsoft products. Newsletters he used to publish during the fIREHOSE days were done on an early Macintosh; he currently uses a self-upgraded 2008 Mac Pro at home and a MacBook Pro when on tourwatt's 'puter setup, both to maintain contacts with friends and fans and maintain the Hoot Page and his MySpace and Facebook pages. With the digital recording software Pro Tools installed, the Mac Pro also doubles as Watt's home studio for recording song demos as well as Dos' fourth, as yet untitled album. He has also used both computers on occasion to record segments or whole installments of The Watt from Pedro Show. Discography * The Minutemen * fIREHOSE * Dos **1986 Dos (New Alliance) **1989 Numero Dos (12" EP) (New Alliance) **1989 Uno Con Dos (CD) (New Alliance) **1996 Justamente Tres (CD) (Kill Rock Stars) *The Stooges **2004 Live In Detroit (DVD) (Creem/MVD) **2005 "You Better Run" on The Songs Of Junior Kimbrough (Fat Possum) **2005 Telluric Chaos (Skydog) **2007 The Weirdness (Virgin) Solo albums All solo albums were released on Columbia: *1995 Ball-Hog or Tugboat? *1997 Contemplating the Engine Room *2004 The Secondman's Middle Stand Non-solo recorded appearances *The Reactionaries **2010 1979 (Water Under The Bridge Records) *Unknown Instructors **2005 The Way Things Work (Smog Veil) **2006 The Master's Voice (Smog Veil) *J Mascis and the Fog **2004 The John Peel Sessions (Strange Fruit Records), five tracks *Gov't Mule **2001 The Deep End, Volume 1 (ATO) - plays on "Effigy" **2003 Rising Low (DVD) (ATO) - appears in interview and recording session footage. *Petra Haden **1998 "Sidemousin' The Bong" on Hempilation, Vol. 2 (with Stephen Perkins) (Capricorn Records) **2005 "Work That We Do" on Look At All The Love We Found: A Tribute To Sublime (with Stephen Perkins) (Cornerstone RAS Records) **2007 "Burning For You" on Guilt by Association Vol. 1 (with Nels Cline, Money Mark Nishita and Chad Smith) (Engine Room Recordings) *Sonic Youth **1986 EVOL (SST, reissued 1994 by DGC) - Watt plays bass on "In The Kingdom #19" and "Bubblegum". **1988 Daydream Nation (Blast First Records, reissued 1994 by DGC and in a 2-CD deluxe edition in 2007 by Chronicles/Geffen) - Watt, via a message left on Thurston Moore's answering machine, appears on "Providence". **1988 The Whitey Album (Blast First, reissued 1994 by DGC), as Ciccone Youth - Watt's home demo recording of his version of Madonna's "Burning Up" appears on the record; he also contributes the liner notes to the DGC reissue. **2004 Corporate Ghost: The Videos: 1990-2002 (Chronicles/Geffen/Universal Home Video) - Watt appears in the videos for "My Friend Goo" and "100%" and provides commentary for both of those videos as well as "Scooter & Jinx", plus appears on the disc's bonus documentary. * Porno for Pyros **1996 Good God's Urge (Warner Bros. Records) - Watt plays bass on two tracks. *Saccharine Trust **1985 Worldbroken (SST) - Watt substitutes for Sachharine Trust's original bassist, who chickened out at the last minute, on this improvised live recording. An outtake from this session appears on the compilation The Blasting Concept, Vol. II (SST, 1986) *The Black Gang **1998 This Is A Prayer (7" EP) (Kill Rock Stars) — Colored vinyl EP. Recorded with Nels Cline on guitar and Bob Lee on drums. * Lil' Pit **1997 Lil' Pit (7" EP) (Kill Rock Stars) *Bootstrappers **1989 Bootstrappers (New Alliance) *Stan Ridgway **1986 The Big Heat (IRS Records), one track *The Doers **2004 I Can Enjoy Almost Anything (Red Cat Records) * Juliana Hatfield **1992 Hey Babe (Mammoth Records) *ESTEL **2006 The bones of something... (Little plastic tapes), sings/spiels on one track **2009 Untitled (Little plastic Tapes / The Richter Collective)Collaborative album *The Book of Knots **2007 Traineater (ANTI- Records), appears on "Pedro To Cleveland" *Kelly Clarkson **2007 My December (RCA Records/Sony BMG) *Funanori **2007 a tiny twofer (Transduction Records), split EP with LITE *Removal **2007 vocals on "all saints day in someone else's town" with Canadian Prog Punk band Removal *Cartavetro **2009 We Need Time Ep (Marsiglia, Taxi Driver, Tesla, Anomolo) - vocals on "We Need Time" Promotional Videos *As a solo artist **1995 "Big Train" - directed by Spike Jonze **1995 "Piss-Bottle Man" - directed by Roman Coppola **1997 "Liberty Calls" - directed by Spike Jonze **2004 "Tied A Reed 'Round My Waist" - directed by Lance Bangs **2004 "Drove up from Pedro" - directed by Muscarella **2004 "Beltsandedman" - directed by Mike Muscarella **2004 "Burstedman" - directed by Mike Muscarella **2004 "Pelicanman" - directed by Mike Muscarella *with Sonic Youth **1990 "My Friend Goo" - cameo appearance **1991 "100%" - brief cameo appearance *with Sublime **1996 "Wrong Way" - Watt portrays a convenience store clerk *with Good Charlotte **2003 "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" - Watt portrays a jury foreman *with Cobra Verde **2003 "Riot Industry" - Watt as "The Man In The Flannel Bathrobe". See also *The Minutemen *fIREHOSE *The Stooges *Dos *Banyan *Unknown Instructors *We Jam Econo - full-length Minutemen documentary (2005) *The Watt From Pedro Show Footnotes References * Tour journals and interview links from Mike Watt's Hoot Page * Michael Azerrad, Our Band Could Be Your Life * Mike Watt, Spiels Of A Minuteman' , L'Oie de Cravan, ISBN 2-922399-20-6 * Various, ''All Music Guide to Rock: The Definitive Guide to Rock, Pop, and Soul, ISBN 0-87930-653-X * Rough Guides, The Rough Guide to Rock (pg. 374), ISBN 1-84353-105-4 External links * Mike Watt's Official Website * Mike Watt's official MySpace page * Minutemen/fIREHOSE/Mike Watt discography * Mike Watt collection at the Internet Archive's live music archive * Corndogs.org - extensive audio and video archive * Watt bio (July 2004) from Columbia Records, posted on the Hoot Page * Watt video page by Mike Muscarella * Trouser Press entry * Interview with splendidezine * Interview on groundcontrolmag.com * Interview with Crasier Frane Category:Mike Watt Category:Minutemen members Category:fIREHOSE members Category:The Stooges members Category:Banyan members Category:Unknown Instructors members Category:The Reactionaries members Category:Dos members Category:Funanori members Category:J Mascis and The Fog members